Prepare ahead - Taking 15 to 30 min Sunday evening and the night before can be so helpful.   This is the time when you figure out:   What can your kids do on their own?  What do they need your help doing?  Make a list for each child with subjects divided between things they can do on their own clearly marked.  The younger the kid, the simpler the list. Most kids just want to know when they are done, so having a list helps them to check off items.

Chores - have them help with chores, even after the complaining they will feel more responsible and more like a contributor to your family

1. Provide a list and they chose numbers to see who goes first, each one can pick an item and keep cycling through until all the chores are picked.

2. Zone your house and assign a child to the zone and alternate zones every day or once a week.

3. Set the timer for 15 min and GO! They had to pick up and put away anything that was out of place. If you made anything a game, my kids were all in. (personal favorite!)

   Special projects:

   Junk Drawer (match lids and plastic containers) great for sorting and organization skills

   Pull weeds for 15 min a day. Make sure they know which ones are the weeds!

   Let them know that this is hard and you all have to pull together as a team to get through this.

   Schoolwork

   Give everyone their list and box/basket of books.

   When school is done, put the books away.

   What can you do together as a family?

   • Read aloud at lunch

   • play an audio book

   • Art projects

   • science experiments

   Exercise

   It is so important to break for exercise and make sure to take time for breaks.

   (I like to just power through a good 2 hours of school, but it doesn’t benefit my children...Warning, set a timer for your break! Otherwise, it is hard to wrangle them all back!)

   • Walk the dog - even on rainy days inside the house!

   • Run around

   • Ride bikes, scooters, etc.

   • Play soccer, basketball, football, baseball, etc

   • Chalk the driveway with exercises - set the timer for 30 seconds and rotate every time the timer goes off (9 exercises 3 arms, 3 legs, 3 core). Go around 3 times or less.

   Snacks, snacks and more snacks

   My kids were eating constantly, so we had to set a scheduled snack time (I chose 10am and 3pm).

Basics in reading and math that they have to learn that can get kind of boring for everyone.

Letters

• color letters on printed coloring pages

• chalk letters on the driveway

• write letters in shaving cream on a cookie sheet

• write letters in rice

Phonograms (letter sounds)

Play tic tac toe with 9 cards at a time.

Say the sound, if the child gets it right, they get to pick up the letter and put an “X”. Then they say a sound. If the other person gets it right, they get to pick up the letter and put down an “O”. Try to get tic tac toe. Play 4 rounds to go over all the letters.

Make a trail of cards with letters on them and hop to the next letter, saying the sound.

Math facts

• Cakewalk Math game (see earlier post)

• Hopscotch to the correct answer (You can make it up to 50, if you want to!)

• Have an older child show flashcards to a younger child

Spelling

• Scrabble tiles or Bananagram tiles

• Magnet letters

• Sidewalk chalk

Change where you have school - outside, different room

• Explain what needs to get done (chores, schoolwork, your job, etc.)

• Brainstorm what would they like to do for fun, within the limits of what you can do

• Give them a list or a block calendar - the younger, the more simple - even pictures will work for preschoolers

• Mark or highlight the items that must be done first - math

• Let them know what things they can decide on the order

• Do they want to get ahead? Let them get started the night before.

• Do they get up early? Try to get up a get going with your early birds

The most important things are probably math and reading, so focus on those first and see what happens for the rest of the day.